Strong districts can drive up demand, price

Locally, the Town of Webb Union Free School District in Herkimer County not only placed first in the three-county region, it was second in all of Upstate New York.

Alissa Scott @OD_Scott

When Sarah Reeske’s husband got a job in Rome while her family was living in Idaho, she started looking for homes in the Mohawk Valley.

She soon found Rome wasn’t really for her.

“Living in Rome would have matched the commute (to my husband’s current job), but the schools scored such low ratings that they deterred me from digging deeper into this housing market there,” said the mother of three young children.

Clinton’s quaintness, its artsy “reputation” and its impressive school district appealed to the Reeskes instead.

And that’s not uncommon.

After location, the second greatest factor for people searching for a new home is schools said Toby Schifsky, the national director of Kaplan Real Estate Education.

“The school district or even a specific school within a district can drive demand for a particular area,” he wrote in an editorial piece for The St. Paul Voice. “Ask any real estate agent you know and they will confirm that having strong school and an overall strong district can

affect home prices by as much as 10 percent over a neighboring district.”

Buffalo Business First this month released a ranking of Upstate New York’s median home values. The median values were generated by the new, five-year version of the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2014 American Community Survey.

A median is a midpoint — half of the district’s home values are higher and half are lower.

Locally, the Town of Webb Union Free School District in Herkimer County not only placed first in the three-county region, it was second in all of Upstate New York.

The Webb school district has a median home value of $288,700 for 893 units. According to Zillow, the median home value in New York is $610,700.

Others high on the list include:

* New Hartford: $164,500 for 5,385 units.

* Clinton: $151,600 for 2,969 units.

* Whitesboro: $135,100 for 7,364 units.

* Holland Patent: $126,400 for 3,131 units.

* Owen D. Young: $126,400 for 487 units.

“The town of Webb is comprised of a large number of second homes, many of which are waterfront,” Superintendent Rex Germer said. “An investment in a home in the town of Webb is traditionally regarded as a very safe bet due to stable or increasing home values.”

He said the home values and the overall property value within the town of Webb are what help to keep the tax rates low.

Rick Timbs, executive director of the Statewide Schools Finance Consortium, said looking at median home values can be tricky.

Webb’s property values are 12 times the state average, he said, but the average income is less than the average.

“They average the two together to get the combined wealth ratio,” Timbs said. “So, they look wealthier on paper than the people who live there and pay school taxes for their children.”

It’s the same in Poland, he said, where the median home value is $106,300 for 1,421 units.

“They’re a little over average in property wealth, but they’re half the average in income wealth,” Timbs said. “Holland Patent may have some higher property values, but on average, their income is below state average.”